The Punch and Judy show is over

By David Cameron

12:01AM BST 10 Oct 2005

Five months ago, Michael Howard initiated an internal debate on the Conservative Party's future direction. Last week in Blackpool, that debate was settled. There's a clear consensus on the need for change; to show that our party is in tune with people's aspirations today. Our task now is to move the argument forward: to show how a changed Conservative Party will offer an attractive alternative programme at the next election.

To be attractive, our programme must be balanced, compassionate and modern: balanced in the sense of improving the quality of life as well as creating prosperity; compassionate in the sense of helping people in Britain and the world who are least able to help themselves; modern in the sense of recognising the challenges of today's Britain and offering effective solutions. And our programme must be based on optimism: trusting people and giving them the responsibility and the power to do the right thing for their families and their communities.

Of course, it would be wrong to try to write the 2009 manifesto today. And policies alone do not deliver electoral success - conviction, judgment and the ability to inspire are as important. But conviction without policy is like a car without wheels: it won't get you where you want to go. We have to be clear about the direction our policy will take.

First, we must have faith in the social and economic benefits of the free market. A real programme for prosperity will progressively remove the barriers to wealth creation in Britain today. We need to open ourselves to risk and treat adults like adults. The stock of regulations must be reduced: we should trust people to make their own mistakes and learn from them. And the flow of new regulation from the EU must also be reduced: our aim should be to take back control of employment and social regulation.

We must reduce and simplify taxes so we can take on with confidence the long-term challenge of competing with China and India for jobs. This means not only proper control of public spending, but also a thoughtful and long-term strategy for tax reduction. I hope George Osborne's Commission on Tax Reform will play an important part in its formulation.

And we need to harness the power of the market to achieve great social and environmental goals - to generate the advance in technology needed to control climate change; to provide the trade upon which - along with the rule of law and property rights - sub-Saharan Africa's rescue from poverty depends; and to create the urban revival that can alone prevent the urban exodus that threatens our countryside and natural environment.

We must be a party committed to a vast programme of public service improvement. We will never get good schools, universities, hospitals, transport or police on the cheap - so we must share the proceeds of economic growth between tax reduction and public service investment. And we must welcome measures that share the burden of funding improvements in universities and transport between the taxpayer and those who directly benefit - for example, through tuition fees and mechanisms for road pricing.

But, to be effective, investment must be accompanied by public service reform, and that too must be based on trusting people more. In crime, this means elected police commissioners responding to the priorities of local people, not Labour's National Policing Plan. In health, it means opening up the right to supply healthcare to all qualified providers, not just a few hand-picked companies.

In education, it means real school autonomy and more parental choice, freeing schools over admissions and allowing them to establish their own identities. But that autonomy must operate against the background of strong leadership to ensure rigour throughout the system. Restoring the credibility of A-levels, radical reform of the QCA, synthetic phonics at the heart of literacy - these will be clear steps along the road. I'm ready for a huge battle with the educational establishment to banish the "progressive" theories that have done such damage for so long.

I'm equally optimistic about our ability to tackle the great challenge of family breakdown. I've never believed in preaching: what right do politicians have to tell people whom they should love and how they should live? My approach will be guided by the evidence, which shows that children do best when both parents are involved in their upbringing. So we should ensure that the tax and benefits system encourages couples to get together and stay together, but we should support all families - for example, through childcare - because what matters most is that children are brought up in stable, loving homes.

In foreign and security policy, the same attitude - a belief in the strength of our society - means a willingness to defend that society. But the measures we take must never undermine the very liberal values we're seeking to preserve. So: no ID cards, no religious hatred laws that impinge on free speech, no detention of 82-year-old gentlemen under anti-terror legislation for heckling at Labour Party conferences.

Our foreign policy must be built on a desire to engage enthusiastically with the wider world as champions of liberal values. We should stop the EU's obsession with ever deeper integration, arguing for a Europe of nation states, open to the world beyond Europe's borders: North America, East Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

This programme - supporting free markets and wealth creation, public service investment and reform, the strengthening and defence of our society - based as it is on optimism and faith in our people and our country, will be the core of my agenda as prime minister. I know Britain can become the most civilised place in the world to live, and I know what needs to be done to make that a reality. I believe this programme will have real resonance among the new generation that I want to inspire with Conservative ideas and ideals.

But to capture their imagination we must also adopt a new style of politics, with less of the Punch and Judy show that younger voters in particular find so alienating. We must use the next three years to make the Conservative Party the engine room of new political ideas - engaging with academics and think tanks; the brightest and the best minds producing detailed policy for the long term, not policy by headline. We must win the battle of ideas.

If we follow this lead, I have no doubt that we can demonstrate our relevance to people's lives today, win the next election, and do great things for our country.